


Refracted Light

by usernameapathy



Series: Squireswap AU [1]
Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Gen, M/M, Not PRIMARILY shippy, Roleswap, Some elements borrowed from the anime, assassin!Alisha, princess!rose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22354786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usernameapathy/pseuds/usernameapathy
Summary: The Age of Chaos has come, and malevolence threatens to engulf the world. Against it stands an untested new Shepherd and his allies both seraphim and human. Among the latter are an unconventional princess-knight and an assassin with a pure soul......who may not be quite who you remember them being.
Relationships: Alisha Diphda & Sorey, Alisha Diphda/Rose, Mikleo/Sorey (Tales of Zestiria), Rose & Sorey (Tales of Zestiria), possibly other background relationships - Relationship
Series: Squireswap AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609183
Comments: 22
Kudos: 12





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Exposed voice, exposed heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10040441) by [Melphis_Amekia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melphis_Amekia/pseuds/Melphis_Amekia). 



> I've been toying with this idea for a while now, and I think it's about ready to start. I can pretty much guarantee that this won't update as often as my Berseria fics, but I wanted to make sure I at least got the prologue up for the TOZ fifth anniversary.
> 
> While I had the idea independently (and I'm going to try to avoid rereading it for the forseeable future to help make sure do my own thing), I would be extremely remiss if I didn't give a shout out to the existing fic I found for this AU concept, [**Exposed voice, exposed heart**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10040441) by [**Melphis_Amekia**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Melphis_Amekia), which has definitely provided some inspiration.
> 
> Also, one note in advance: the premise does NOT mean this is going be a simple substitution fic. The canon story may wind up going pretty off the rails. (Which is one of the reasons why I can't guarantee frequent updates - it takes time to work out ramifications.)

She stood at the edge of the roof, hands clasped, and stared out over the streets of Ladylake. Those streets were all but deserted - dawn's first light had yet to touch the horizon, and those people of the city who lived at night had returned to their homes - but she found it comforting. The guild owed no allegiance to any land, had traveled all over the world, but Ladylake would always be _her_ city, and at times like this it was possible to pretend it was still the same. In the daytime you couldn't escape the listlessness in the streets, the spark missing from behind the eyes of the people. Even now, with the Sacred Blade Festival approaching for the first time in years...

She closed her eyes briefly. Thinking about the festival was less than helpful. The part of her that treasured the contents of the book hanging at her hip, that held to hope in the old stories no matter how often Felice and Talfryn gently teased her about it, wanted to believe in the legend of the festival, in a chance for hope and redemption for not just her city but the whole world. But the part of her that led the Scattered Bones couldn't help but wonder: did the princess herself believe? Or had she just pressed for the festival's return in some cynical attempt to advance her own personal agenda? Every year, the world grew darker, and yet the seraphim remained silent. And as long as that was the case -

A gust of wind ruffled the edge of her hood, and with it she sensed both the approach and the identity of the man who had joined her on the roof. "Eguille."

"Boss," the older man replied. He came to her side, but focused on her rather than the city. "Are you still thinking about the contract?"

"Yes." She sighed. With many other members of the guild she couldn't let her mask drop, but she knew that Eguille could always be relied upon. Not just to accomplish his missions, but to remain unaffected by the awareness that his leader was, so often, just an uncertain young woman beset by so many doubts. "There are... a number of unanswered questions."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to put Lunarre on answering them?" Questioning her decisions was another thing they could only do in private, yet it too brought her no end of relief. "He's always been a loose cannon, and we both know he's been getting worse."

"I know, but I fear I have no choice. We're going to be stretched very thin with the festival and he's our best tracker by far. We need some answers. What's she really doing when she leaves the city?" Unconsciously, one hand reached down to her side, seeking the comforting feel of the Celestial Record. "Everything about her is a contradiction. She's distantly removed from the throne and supposed to be unwilling to ever act like a princess, yet she's also said to feel far more of a sense of duty to Hyland than the rest of the royal family put together. An idealist surrounded by cynics, or a fanatic surrounded by pragmatists. I just don't know."

The conversation from that afternoon came back to her again.

_"The princess is known as one of the most consistent anti-war voices in the government. Are you saying that's only a mask?"_

_Chancellor Bartlow sighed heavily. "If only it was a mask, she'd be easier to deal with. Her Highness truly believes in her ideals, and in a different time they would be admirable, but the degree she's willing to take them to is sheer madness. She would let Hyland and all its people burn rather than compromise her precious purity in even the slightest way."_

_The note of disgust in his voice was hard to ignore, and again she felt a certain suspicion for the man seated before her. But the enmity between the chancellor and the princess was hardly a secret, and it didn't inherently make his concerns invalid. "Still, though. Treason? You sincerely believe she would go that far?"_

_"For someone who holds war in such disdain, any other measure is considered justifiable. To her mind, helping Rolance conquer us, no matter how much continuing devastation it causes, is the lesser evil next to a longer conflict. Particular when she may already have hidden ties to the empire."_

_She exchanged a glance with Eguille. His face was hidden behind his metal mask, but he gave a single nod. The view of war was one that was very familiar to her own heart, and these supposed connections still needed investigation, but neither of them could disagree with Bartlow's assessment of what even a clear-cut victory could mean. After centuries of conflict between the empire of Rolance and the kingdom of Hyland, conquest would just guarantee continued resistance, suffering, and loss of life. Maybe even worse than open war, terrible a prospect though it was._

_"Your concerns are serious ones, Chancellor," she told her prospective employer. "For the Scattered Bones, though, taking a life is not a mission we undertake lightly. Honor demands that we investigate further before accepting your contract."_

_Bartlow offered a practiced smile. "Of course. Your famed integrity is one of the reasons the council has turned to you rather than some group of petty cutthroats. I only ask that you make your decision as quickly as possible._

_"If Princess Rose is not stopped soon, I cannot even think of the tragedy that could occur."_

In the east, the sky had begun to lighten ever so subtly. She took a last moment to look over the city, reminding herself of what was at stake here. All of those people, just living their lives, even in a world grown more and more uncertain with each passing year. She had a duty to protect them - even, if necessary, from their own leaders.

"I suppose standing around up here will solve nothing. We should get back to the others."

Eguille paused. "You're sure you're okay, Boss?"

"I don't believe I have the time to be anything else." Alisha doffed her assassin's mask, closed her eyes for a moment to focus, and put on the one she wore as leader of the Sparrowfeathers merchant's guild. "Come on. It's going to be a busy day."


	2. Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've decided to try something a little different with this fic. I've kept thinking that for web serial writing, it doesn't entirely make sense to follow a print media format of chapter divisions where each chapter has a bunch of different scenes - instead, I want to try uploading each scene as I finish it as its own "chapter", so that readers get updates a lot more regularly. I do NOT know if this will actually read well, though, so I'm very much interested in feedback as the story goes along.

Darkness.

Then-

"-ey. Are you all right?"

At the sound of the voice, Rose raised herself off the ground with one arm and cracked an eye open, wincing as another brief twinge went through her head. The speaker was a boy - no, a young man, it was just his expression that made him look boyish - with tousled brown hair. He wore a couple of clips with feathers attached to his ears, but his clothes otherwise seemed simple and homespun. She had no idea who he was.

Or where she was.

"What hit me...?"

The young man turned to look at the air beside him for a moment, then back at her. "It looks like you fell from up there."

She glanced around at the ruined shrine, the details coming back to her. "Right. I was in a forest, and I found a tunnel into here, and then... I remember a whole bunch of lightning-"

As she sat up, she abruptly halted. Where she could normally feel the weight of both daggers strapped to the back of her tabard, now she could only detect one. Realizing more clearly she had absolutely no clue what was going on - and noticing what looked like a sword hanging from the stranger's belt - she groped around on the floor with one hand, but could find nothing.

 _Damn._ Still, it shouldn't be a big deal. She'd trained to fight just as well with one of them as two. _Still, Mal's gonna kill me over this._ And she couldn't totally blame her; the blade was as much of a family heriloom as her armor-

"Looking for something?"

There was nothing alarming on the young man's face, only guileless concern. She also noticed, with a moment's more observation, that the sword he was wearing actually seemed to be made of... wood, of all things. _Why would someone way out here have a ceremonial sword? Weird._

"It's nothing. Hey, you got a name?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm Sorey. What's yours?" He cocked his head a moment, then reached out a hand. "Oh - right! Can you stand?"

For a moment Rose just stared at the proffered hand. She'd never bothered to waste much time on official portraits, but she'd at least thought her custom uniform was fairly recognizable, to say nothing of the black crystal armor. _I must_ really _be out in the sticks._

Accepting Sorey's hand, she rose carefully to her feet. Nothing seemed broken or even especially bruised. "I'm Rose. Rose-" She hesitated. The idea that he was only pretending not to recognize her seemed completely ridiculous staring at that boyish face, but she couldn't totally rule out the possibility. Especially with that creepy feeling of being followed she'd never been able to identify the cause for, all through the forest... "Rose Monmouth. I'm a knight of Hyland. Nice to meetcha."

Sorey grinned widely. "I've never met a knight before. Nice to meet you too! So, what brings you up here?"

"Uh-" This time it wasn't suspicion that kept her mouth shut so much as embarrassment. _I still can't believe I'm even doing this. I can't_ imagine _telling anyone else._

"If you don't want to say, that's okay. I know we just met." His head turned in the direction of the air besides him again.

Rose shook her head. "Nah, it's not that. It's just kind of a long story." And, okay, yes, an embarrassing one, but that wasn't the point. "There somewhere around here where I can rest up first?"

"You could come to my village. Elysia. It's not that far," Sorey said with a smile. Then he turned and walked several feet away. His voice lowered, but Rose could still hear him as he spoke to... the air, _again?_ "She doesn't seem like a bad person to me. And I can't just abandon someone in need."

"Uh... who are you talking to?"

Sorey turned back and shook his head. "Oh, right! It's nothing. C'mon, I think this is the way back to the surface."

Rose stared as he turned and began climbing a stairs. _What a weirdo. Or... is he..._

 _No way. No_ way. _I'm not even going there._ (Even though it was why she'd come here in the first place - No. Ugh.)

She shook her head and began following the weird young man out of the ruins.


	3. A Princess Missing...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Rose absent in Elysia, questions continue to be asked in the capital.

"Bad news, Boss. It's confirmed, or at least as confirmed as it gets before the official announcement. General Sinclair intends to take an early retirement at the end of this month. Officially to spend more time with his family."

Eguille's face was grim. Alisha couldn't blame him. "Which would make Landon the senior commander of Hyland's army." Neither of them had to spell out what that meant. Sinclair had been involved in enough of the last skirmishes with Rolance to know what war was like even for the victor, but Landon's reputation clearly painted him as a glory hound whose only concern was victories that would advance his career. No matter how many people had to die for it.

_Damn it. With everything that's happening in the world, why do they have to-_

She rested her chin on one hand. "I don't suppose there's any chance it actually _was_ his own idea?"

Felice leaned back against the crate behind her. "It should be easy to find out." They'd chosen to meet in a rented warehouse rather than a proper hideout this time to keep an especially low profile. With only days before the Sacred Blade Festival begun, the guard was taking extra steps to make sure Ladylake looked its best, at least on the surface. And with both faces of the guild involved so heavily with the festival, it was more important than ever to keep a clear distance between them. "His daughter's housekeeper is a regular customer. Shouldn't be hard to get her talking about what she knows."

Alisha nodded. "All right. In the meantime, Rosh, take squad 2 up to Fort Girone and keep an eye on things. I want to stay very aware of any messages going between the army and the capital... especially considering our current job."

And with that, she couldn't put it off anymore. She turned her attention back to the parchment canvas rolled out on their makeshift table.

Even a minor member of Hyland's royal family had dozens of official portraits and their imitations to choose from, but Alisha had selected this one because it seemed the most... honest. Unlike the various depictions of Princess Rose perched stiffly in formal dress scattered around, this one had her looking relaxed in her custom red-and-black tabard, flanked by a handful of other young men and women. The street vendor who'd been selling them said the original hung in the knights' barracks rather than Rountabel Palace or some other elite structure.

She glanced only briefly at the other knights' features - the guild was doing some digging into the ones who were still alive, but the most interesting thing was probably just that the princess had insisted on posing with them at all - before focusing on Rose. Even in this monochrome charcoal drawing that stole the red from her hair and the blue from her eyes, it was clear she lacked most of the distinctive features of the Diphda family, taking far more after her late commoner mother. (Alisha hadn't voiced the thought aloud, but she'd wondered during her follow-up meetings with Bartlow's agent if that was one reason she seemed to irritate the council on such a basic level, beyond that of her politics...)

She _was_ pretty, though, moreso than many of the more blatantly decorative members of the nobility. The amusedly expressive smile was part of it, and even in black-and-white the gaze was striking, but Alisha also suspected the effect would be stronger in person than in a portrait. From everything they'd found out so far, Rose struck her as the kind of person who threw everything she had into life, and that was something that she thought the world could use more of.

Unfortunately, it might also be part of the problem in this case... 

"Do we know yet whether it's true that she stopped the council from issuing an order to draft soldiers to assist with the plague in Marlind?" she asked. She was somewhat suspicious of the story, but given the princess's aggressively pacifistic politics it was certainly at least possible.

Eguille shook his head. "The council doesn't maintain any notes of their meetings, even secret ones. Or so our patron says." He smiled sardonically. "It's almost like they have something to hide."

Alisha frowned. "Everyone has something to hide. The question is what is _she_ hiding?" Sitting up straighter, she clasped her hands together. "She doesn't really believe in any of the old stories. All of the accounts we've found agree on that much, at least. And she certainly doesn't have good relationships with the leadership of Hyland's Church." She sighed. "Not that I can entirely blame her for that." All accounts also agreed that Archbishop Nathael wouldn't be capable of true faith if a seraph punched him in the face. "So why did she fight so hard to hold the Sacred Blade Festival for the first time in years? And why would she then just _disappear,_ only a week before it began?"

They were the same questions she had asked before, and she was still waiting on answers. She glanced at Eguille. "Still no reports from Lunarre, I assume?"

"Where would he even report in from? No one lives up in those mountains." _Except fairy tales,_ he conspicuously avoided saying, but Alisha still felt the words sting.

"And that's why we need to be certain she's actually going there." And not, say, to Rolance. For the hundredth time, she wished she could have spared someone else besides Lunarre to track the princess. She wanted to believe in him, especially given how often she herself was conflicted over the Scattered Bones' mission - not just in this instance, but at all times. But still, she did know her people well enough to realize that a purely observational mission when dealing with a potential target would... test him.

Another sigh. _You can't keep second-guessing yourself. You need to keep on doing all that you can. Especially if she **is** what Bartlow says she is._

The meeting broke up shortly afterward. Felice and Talfryn would take their people out to join up with the main Sparrowfeathers caravan, which would move into the city as soon as the bureaucracy had finished double-checking their application to work the festival. She and Eguille would linger a bit longer, then join them.

As the other guild members filed out, Eguille came up to see her staring at the charcoal portrait again. "I haven't seen you this tense about a job in a while. I know this can't be easy, targeting someone who's taken such major steps to..." He glanced at the book attached to her hip. "Well, you know."

Alisha shook her head. "It's not that. I've been inside enough sanctuaries that were _anything_ but - I have no tolerance left for those who would abuse the people's faith for their own selfish ambitions." Not that she was happy about it, but... "It's more that... I wish I could have faith in _her_. So many people look at the state of the world these days and do nothing, or worse, think only of how they can gain from it even if it means making things worse. So few are trying to make it better."

"We are," he reminded her.

"I'm doing my best. But it would be... reassuring, to think that someone like her, someone who could just lead a safe and privileged life away from all this, could actually be choosing to be doing something to try and make things better as well. The problem is... what her definition if wanting to make things better just means hurting more people?"

There was silence for a moment, then Eguille gestured with his head towards the door. "Come on. We can worry more about this when we actually know where she is. For now, we should get back to those clerks before Vanders and his con operation can get the fountain square stalls reserved."

Alisha smiled. "I'd like to think Ladylake remembers the quality of his goods enough that we don't need to worry about that." Still, she rolled up the parchment and put into a satchel before following him out the door. But not before she paused and took one more look into the enigmatic eyes of Rose's portrait.

_Where are you, really?_

_**Who** are you, really?_

***

"Are you entirely certain this is wise, sir? Part of the reason the council hired the Scattered Bones is because they're supposed to be above this kind of thing."

Lord Bartlow let himself stare out the window of his study for a moment longer before turning his chair back to look at Niall. Unlike the way most underlings would have sounded when questioning his decisions, the aide's voice was entirely level. He'd been in the lord chancellor's service for long enough - and in enough... _delicate_ situations - that he knew his advice could come freely. It was one reason Bartlow trusted him to handle negotiations like the one he was reporting on.

"True. But on the other hand, it's important to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Any violence befalling Rose within the city, no matter how wild the possibility of linking it to us, might still make some of the common rabble suspicious. But if our headstrong princess-knight should simply... fail to return from another of her ill-advised solo expeditions into the wilderness... Well, there would hardly be anything surprising about that, would there?"

He rested his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers. "You're sure the man is both willing and capable?"

Niall frowned slightly and brushed an imaginary fleck of dust from his spotless purple jacket sleeve. "Willing to ignore his guild's orders and assassinate the princess? Yes... almost too _much_ so. As I said, he struck me as a tad... unstable. I'm not sure we can rely on him to actually succeed at killing her." There was a touch of professional distate in his voice; though he didn't dirty his hands with such things personally, Niall had acted more than once as Bartlow's agent in eliminating particularly dangerous obstacles to Hyland's interests.

The chancellor took advantage of his own profession, and offered a reassuring smile. "As I said, it's a matter of opportunities. It works best for our purposes if she fails to return from the mountains, but the rest of this Mister Lunarre's peers will still be waiting if she does. And by that time, our own preparations for her festival should be complete as well. To say nothing of a certain ongoing plague a certain idealist would be honor-bound to assist with..." He exhaled. "It's been a long time coming, but with any luck, by this time next month the danger that girl poses to our nation should be nothing more than an unpleasant memory. 

"And then we can get back to giving the people what they truly need."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW, Niall is the name I've given to the council's unnamed-in-canon flunky who spies on Sorey and co early in the game. There will be a couple of unnamed bit parts like this getting slightly larger roles/expanded scenes in this story; I'll do my best to make it clear who's who.


	4. A Village Missing...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose spends a few days in a strange mountain village.

"So, you settled in okay?"

Rose turned from where she'd let herself sprawl on the small house's rug (it wasn't the most ladylike posture, but no one was gonna gripe at her about that _here_ ) to see Sorey shut the door behind him. "Yeah, it's nice. So, your talk with your grandfather went... okay, right?"

Sorey grinned sheepishly. "Well... Gramps was a little surprised, for sure, but I knew he'd be fine with letting you stay for a few days in the end. Elysia never gets visitors from the world below, but that doesn't mean we've forgotten our manners." He paused. "Also, technically he's not my grandfather. Gramps is just what we - I - call him, since he's raised me all my life. I guess Elysia in general did, really."

"Huh." There were a couple of things to unpack there - not least the implication that there were in fact more people living in this oddly empty "village" besides Sorey and his unseen 'gramps' - but she didn't want to go _there_ right now, especially with both fatigue and hunger nagging at her. So she instead chose to follow up the simplest option. "What do you mean 'the world below'?"

"You know, the land that lies below the mountaintops. Where you come from."

Rose furrowed her brow. "You make it sound like you've never left this mountain."

Sorey shook his head. "I've thought about doing it sometime, sure. I'd love to travel around and explore ruins all over the world. That's kind of a hobby of mine, like I told you earlier."

Her mouth twitched. "You sound like my friend Clem. She was _crazy_ about exploring the ruins in both our hometowns. Never really got the whole thing myself..." Though as she shrugged, the thought again came to her: _But you are here **now** , aren't you?_

***

Later, after a surprisingly delicious meal (and one where, again, it was a relief to just _eat_ without having to worry about decorum and protocol and what-not), Sorey took up the earlier conversational thread again. "So, your hometown has ruins in it? You said you were from Hyland, right?"

"Yeah. Ladylake, the capital, to be exact-"

"Like in the legend of the Lady of the Lake and the Sacred Blade?!"

Rose blinked. "You - you've heard of that?" Even by what she had already come to conclude were Sorey's usual exuberant and excitable standards, it'd been a real outburst. "All the way up here?"

Sorey beamed. "Of course! There's whole chapters all about it in the Celestial Record!"

"The heck? You've read that too?"

The young man reached into one of the pouches at his belt and pulled out a small black book, bearing both a familiar symbol on the cover and the clear signs of extensive rereading. "All the time! Wait, 'too'? Does that mean you...?"

She pulled out her own, much more pristine-looking copy. "Clem gave me a copy a couple of years ago for my birthday. Honestly, I never really paid much attention to it, not until..."

She bit her lip. For a moment there was silence, and she waited for Sorey to press her, but he kept silent.

_Am I really going to just... talk about this?_

_But then again, am I ever going to find a less judgmental audience?_

"If you've never been below this mountain, then... you don't know about the calamities, do you?"

Sorey looked concerned. "Calamities?"

"Storms, floods, diseases, droughts... all sorts of disasters have been happening all over the world. They've been getting worse and worse over the last few years. Nobody knows why, but there's all kinds of panic about an 'Age of Chaos'. I've... tried to roll my eyes at the doomsaying, but things really are taking a toll. People are suffering." She swallowed. "Dying.

"Like I told you, I'm a knight. If people are causing problems, I can try and deal with it. I can fight them, or talk to them, or something. But what am I supposed to do about a tornado? It's... All over the continent there are people who think the best way to deal with the chaos is starting wars to steal other people's stuff, and that's so frigging _stupid_ , but also - part of me keeps thinking, at least that's something I _can_ actually try to stop! But this other - stuff...

She shook her head and waved her Celestial Record. "I don't know if I believe everything in this book, about Shepherds and seraphim and all that. Honestly, it - it kind of gives me the creeps, the idea that there are these powers out there that humans can't see or know about. You know? But... I don't know, if I can't help, I want to try and find some way to... Gah, this is hard to talk about, but you know what I'm saying, right?" She shrugged. "Of course, almost everyone back in Ladylake just laughs at the idea."

Sorey recoiled. "That's awful! What about your friend Clem?"

Rose looked down at the floor. A fringe of hair fell forward into her eyes, but she didn't mind; it was easier not to look at anything that way. "...She's dead. One of those disasters I talked about wiped out her whole town not long ago." She held up a hand as he opened his mouth for some kind of sympathetic platitude. "She's not the only friend I've lost, and I'm not the only one who's lost people. The world is _not_ a nice place right now."

Sorey sat back slowly. "So that's why... Look, I don't know about Shepherds, although I did find a glove in those ruins earlier with the Shepherd's crest on it. But what you said about the idea of seraphim creeping you out... I know the Celestial Record talks about people revering 'that which they don't understand', but it also says that long ago humans and seraphim lived in harmony together. Maybe some of them would just like to meet you."

She gave him a skeptical glance. That had almost sounded like he was speaking from personal-

_Nope. Not thinking too hard about that right now._

"Huh. Well, I guess we can talk more about this tomorrow. I think I'm gonna hit the hay now, so to speak. I don't know how long I was out in those ruins earlier today, but I do know it's been forever since I got an actual good night's sleep."

Sorey scratched his head, embarrassed. "Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to keep you up talking."

"You apologize way too much, you know that?"

"Sorr- uh, yeah." Another sheepish head-scratching gesture. "You can take the bed, I'm fine just staying out here for tonight. You want to go out and try and get some materials for your return trip tomorrow?"

"Sure. Night."

***

They did just that the next morning, engaging in relatively little serious conversation as they hunted down a handful of prickleboars. It was a side of Sorey that Rose hadn't quite expected to see; despite the good-natured ingenuity, he was quite capable of surviving in the wild. Probably more than she was, really. For all her missions and excursions she had to admit that she didn't exactly love the wildnerness.

But it also puzzled (and mildly freaked out) her even more. Sorey kept speaking as if there were plenty of other people living in Elysia, but where _were_ they? The village seemed like it was missing everything - shops, craftsmen, and inhabitants - but then where had all the buildings come from? Sorey was definitely weird but he wasn't _nuts_. And sure, it might have been her imagination, but there had been feelings all day like someone was nearby, watching her...

At one point, she finally just snapped. "All right, I'm getting fed up with this! If anyone's out there, you can go ahead and just speak up now, okay?"

A very brief pause-

"...a-and _show_ yourself too, I mean! The visibility part is very important!"

Sorey looked at her with another of his slightly embarrassed grins as the silence lingered. At least it wasn't the "you're crazy" look she had expected.

(Though she wasn't sure if his opinion was all that reassuring there...)

The feeling of watched never really went away, but she didn't bother trying to comment on it again. Partly because she probably just looked like a frigging idiot, but also because... well, it might also be her imagination, but it wasn't nearly as creepy a feeling of observation as the sinister presence she'd felt tailing her through the "Forest of Perdition" below.

Besides, if there were seraphim here and **Sorey** was friends with them, they couldn't be _that_ scary...

***

Mikleo studied the dagger carefully as he made his way towards Elysia's gate. He had next-to-no firsthand experience with the things - nobody in the village bothered to make them when seraphic artes could serve better for just about any potential purpose, and even the kitchen knives were really only ever used by Sorey. But as cultural artifacts they'd come up at least a few times in the Celestial Record, so he still felt pretty confident in his assessment. In its functional yet elegant design - and slightly outdated aesthetic, suggestive of a pre-Death Age origin - it seemed very much in keeping with the rest of Rose's equipment. (Not that he'd really expected anyone else to have dropped a dagger in those ruins, but still).

Of course, that made the crest on the hilt - one that he'd seen way _more_ than a few times in the Celestial Record - very curious indeed...

A part of him was a little surprised he wasn't more relieved that the human girl was leaving today. For a while there he'd been really convinced that Rose being there would bring some kind of trouble down on Elysia. After all, when had Sorey just rushing in without thinking things through _not_ made a mess? (Okay, it **had** probably been his own fault when they'd tried rappeling down into the sunken shrine to the north that one time. And they wouldn't have met Rose in the first place if he hadn't been the one to step on those weakened flagstones in the Mount Mabinogio ruins. And- But still, it was _usually_ Sorey's fault.)

Plus, while he'd be an enormous jerk to begrudge his best friend spending some time with a new friend, it was a little... annoying just how much time Sorey had spent exclusively around her these last few days.

But to be fair, they couldn't exactly spend time together as a trio when Rose could neither see nor hear him, and he'd been surprised how much that fact stuck with him. The way she seemed mildly-to-heavily freaked out by the idea that "invisible" seraphim could be hanging around was a _little_ funny, yeah. He'd actually had to team up with Kyme and Mason to lay down the law when a few of the village's less-mannerly residents had proposed rearranging her things when her back was turned as a prank.

But it was also more than a little sad, because Rose _was_ a good person. She seemed brave and determined and a little offbeat, and despite everything the elders had always said about humans, she barely gave off any malevolence at all. It didn't seem right that any knowledge or interaction between them could only go one way. It was enough to make him understand a little better the way Sorey felt, when he talked about how much he wished the world could go back to the ancient times when all humans and seraphim coexisted.

And it reminded him of part of the conversation he'd had with Gramps before venturing into the ruins to find the knife...

_"You sure have mellowed on her, huh, Gramps? When Sorey first showed up with a human in tow it looked for a moment like you really meant to read him the riot act."_

_The old seraph shrugged and smiled. "I suppose I was just being a bit of an old fogey who doesn't like to see his kids grow up. I always knew this day would come."_

_Mikleo frowned. "What do you mean?"_

_"Sorey is a child of two worlds, Mikleo. He has both the capacity and desire to serve a bridge between human and seraph. Yet he's spent his entire life living only in our realm. He was born a human. It's only natural that one day he would venture forth to live out his days in their world."_

_Mikleo's frown deepened. "Sorey, going to live among humans? No offense, Gramps, but are you nuts? He'd get eaten alive! You know what he's like - he doesn't know anything about them, or the way they live! I mean, can you imagine him trying to use... what's it called... 'money'...?"_

And besides, I'd... _He shook his head._

_Barely visible under his bushy eyebrows, Gramps's eyes twinkled. "Well now, I never said I expected him to go there **alone**..."_

His mind came back to the present as he approached the gate. Thanks to the low-level wind artes that someone always had running, even from this distance he could hear the tailing edges of the conversation between Sorey and their guest. Once again, and inevitably, his friend seemed to be having difficulty with the idea that what was totally normal for him seemed super-nice to anyone else.

"...no, really, it was nothing."

"You're way too modest," Rose replied. "Sure, most people would _say_ they'd help a stranger without knowing anything about them, but actually _doing_ it? Let's just say I'm kinda skeptical." Her gauntled hands interworked together for a moment. "I mean... I did kinda lie to you right at the start, you know."

Mikleo strained to listen more closely. _What does **that** mean?_

Sorey asked the same question, and Rose gave a nervous-looking smile. "Uh, yeah, my name... My surname isn't Monmouth. It's Diphda. Rose Diphda."

(Sorey seemed to miss the reference. Unsurprisingly.)

"As in... the secondary branch of the Royal Family of Hyland."

Even this far out Sorey's surprise was visible. "Whoa, you're royalty?"

Rose shrugged. "In a technical sense. I'm only eleventh in line to the throne. Twelfth in a few months, when my aunt has her second baby. I should have told you right away, but... my mentor always told me to be careful with how much I gave away about myself, and, well..."

Sorey shook his head. "I understand. You were just being careful."

Mikleo could make out Rose's frown. "I was being paranoid. I know we've only known each other a few days, but I could tell pretty much from the very start that you're a good guy. And..." She shrugged again. "Look. I still don't know if I believe there are seraphim here in Elysia," (a couple of the onlooking villagers exchanged amused looks), "and I dunno if one old glove is enough to make me start believing in fairy tales. But we're not holding the Sacred Blade Festival because everyone believes it's literally true, we're holding it because it reminds us what's important to the people of Ladylake. And whether they're legendary heroes or not, Ladylake could use more good guys in general. Like you."

She looked down. "I don't want to pressure you into anything. But if you can make it... Well. I hope I'll see you there."

Sorey looked a bit dumbstruck as she set off through the gate and down the slope, back to the world of humans. Arriving on the scene, Mikleo tapped his friend on the shoulder.

"Invited to a festival by a princess? Bet you weren't expecting _that_ to happen this morning."

Sorey turned around. "Mikleo!" He spotted the dagger. "What's that?"

"Gramps sent me back into the ruins to look for clues about Rose, and I found this." He handed it over. "Check out the hilt - that's the royal crest of Hyland. It looks like Rose really is royalty."

Sorey's face fell. "This belongs to her? Why didn't you get here sooner? I could have given it back!" He turned and looked through the gate, but the human girl was already out of sight. "Should I go after her?"

Mikleo smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "No need to go rushing off. I'm sure you can catch up to her later."

***

And indeed, soon they would do just that.

...But not under the circumstances any of them had expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was an absolute nightmare to write. Updates should come much more frequently from now on, barring IRL developments.


End file.
